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"Me and My Friends" is a live-action pilot that was filmed at Nickelodeon Studios Florida in September 1998. The pilot's concept was later reworked into The Backyardigans.

Me and My Friends photo

The characters with a crew members

Characters

Plot

The plot featured Uniqua, Pablo, Tyrone, and Tasha having adventures in an early version of the backyard.

Production

The characters were designed by illustrator Dan Yaccarino. Costume designer and developer Yvette Helin in New York worked with her team and sculptor Sal Denaro to realize the two-dimensional characters into life size walk-around character costumes. Yaccarino was a supervisor for the costume-building process. Yugi Yashimoto and Dann Quinn were hired to realize the head sculpts full size and engineer various remote control effects such as moving eyes and mouths.

Title

The title "Me and My Friends" means the story was likely told from a specific character's point of view (since it uses "me/my"). Interviews with the show's creator, Janice Burgess, suggest that "Me" refers to Uniqua, who was based on Janice herself. "My Friends" refers to the rest of the Backyardigans, who were inspired by Janice's friends growing up.

"Uniqua is me. Or at least who I was as a kid." – Janice Burgess
"My inspiration was my own backyard in Pittsburgh. As a kid, me and my friends would play hide and seek and imagine we were sailing ships and fending off lions." – Janice Burgess

Trivia

  • Austin does not appear in the pilot since he was not a planned character.
  • In the pilot, three characters called the Meerkats are introduced. At some point in the transition from live action to animation, they were removed. They were originally also supposed to appear in the original series, they were however scrapped from the series and replaced by Austin.
  • Uniqua has visible nostrils and her spots are purple instead of hot pink.
  • Pablo has a darker blue color in the pilot than in the original series.
  • Tyrone and Tasha's nostrils are black instead of dark orange and dark yellow.
  • Tyrone's t-shirt has dark green and yellow stripes instead of blue and orange stripes.
  • Tyrone also has a stuffed rabbit in the pilot.
Pilots
"Me and My Friends" • Nick Digital pilot
"Pirate Treasure" • "The Heart of the Jungle" • "The Yeti" • "The Snow Fort" • "Secret Mission" • "It's Great to Be a Ghost!" • "Riding the Range" • "The Key to the Nile" • "Knights Are Brave and Strong" • "Viking Voyage" • "Castaways" • "Race to the Tower of Power" • "The Quest for the Flying Rock" • "Polka Palace Party" • "Surf's Up" • "Eureka!" • "Race Around the World" • "Monster Detectives" • "Cave Party" • "High Tea"
"Mission to Mars" • "Samurai Pie" • "Scared of You" • "Whodunit" • "The Legend of the Volcano Sisters" • "The Secret of Snow" • "The Swamp Creature" • "Horsing Around" • "Special Delivery" • "International Super Spy: Part 1" • "International Super Spy: Part 2" • "Movers of Arabia" • "Cops and Robots" • "Sinbad Sails Alone" • "Best Clowns in Town" • "Save the Day" • "Into the Deep" • "News Flash" • "Catch That Butterfly" • "A Giant Problem"
"Who Goes There?" • "Blazing Paddles" • "Garbage Trek" • "Fly Girl" • "What's Bugging You? " • "Chichen-Itza Pizza" • "To the Center of the Earth" • "Front Page News" • "Tale of the Mighty Knights: Part 1" • "Tale of the Mighty Knights: Part 2" • "Le Master of Disguise" • "Match on Mt. Olympus" • "The Great Dolphin Race" • "Caveman's Best Friend" • "Ranch Hands from Outer Space" • "Robin Hood the Clean" • "Escape from Fairytale Village" • "Pirate Camp" • "The Two Musketeers" • "The Masked Retriever"
"The Funnyman Boogeyman" • "Break Out!" • "The Action Elves Save Christmas Eve" • "Robot Rampage" • "The Amazing Splashinis" • "Follow the Feather" • "Los Galacticos" • "The Magic Skateboard" • "Pablor and the Acorns" • "Elephant on the Run" • "The Flipper" • "The Big Dipper Diner" • "For the Love of Socks!" • "The Tale of the Not-So-Nice Dragon" • "Super Team Awesome" • "Dragon Express" • "Catch that Train!" • "Attack of the 50 Foot Worman" • "Flower Power"
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